How council housing charges are set

Check your housing rent account on the self service site

Calculation of monthly housing/garage charges

Housing charges are your rent plus any other payments you make for heating, insurance, garage rental and so on.

Please note that 2024/25 is a 53 week year, starting 1 April 2024 and ending 6 April 2025. Therefore, monthly payments are calculated by multiplying total weekly charges by 53 and dividing by 12.

However, direct debit payments are calculated as follows:

For example, if your weekly housing charges were £143.56 then your monthly payments would be:

• £644.58 for April only
• £633.10 for each month from May to March

This calculation usually results in a lot of decimal places, so it is rounded up or down, to the nearest whole amount. To keep your annual charge exact, an adjustment is made in the first month. This ensures that you are not overcharged or placed in arrears.

Housing charges records and statements

You should keep your own records of housing charges payments so that you know that your account is up to date.

We send you a housing statement every three months and we will write to you if your account falls into arrears.

Rent setting policy

Government policy directs how rents should be set by local authorities and registered social landlords.

The stated objectives of this policy are:

• rents should remain affordable in the long term
• rents should be fairer and less confusing for tenants
• there should be a closer link between rents and the qualities that tenants value in properties
• unjustifiable differences between the rents set by local authorities and by registered social landlords should be removed over ten years

How rents are calculated

The Government requires all local authorities to calculate the rent for each of their properties according to a set formula.

This formula takes into account:

• the market value of the individual property in January 1999 compared to the national average value for other local authority properties
• the number of bedrooms in the property
• average earnings of manual workers in the county or borough compared to national average earnings